![]() They were from the unit we’d been supporting and had heard a female voice over the radio, and when they saw me, they came up to thank me. ![]() A number of hours later, I was headed to the HQ tent at the airfield a few miles away when a few young Marines walked up. We were feeding them information on what we saw, and the forward air controller asked us to fly over their position to see what the enemy would do. There was a fire fight- we were getting shot at the guys on the ground were getting shot at. It was a late night flight, so we were on NVGs and we were flying in support of a unit taking fire within the town. Haynie described the situation to me in an email: Captain Haynie’s (now Major Haynie) section of cobra attack helicopters was supporting 3/23 in the vicinity of Al Kut. We train for this type of malfunction, but I never would have imagined shooting the gun in standby pipper in combat like this.Ĭut to Iraq in the spring of 2003. We destroyed the enemy on several passes. I needed to quickly get ready to shoot the gun manually, where I had to be at an exact dive angle, airspeed, and altitude when opening fire in order to be accurate. I had to rely on the very archaic backup called “standby pipper,” which was a hard site. On my last rocket pass, my heads up display failed with all of our computerized weapons sites. She and her A-10 wingman were called in to kill insurgents fighting friendly troops in rugged terrain: military.Ĭongresswoman Martha McSally, the first female aviator to fly in combat, said that her most memorable mission was the first time she shot at the enemy in Afghanistan. Editor’s Note: This is the first article in a short series on the debate over women serving in combat arms in the U.S.
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